I have been working all day revising “Waldemar.” (I took “Ambrose” to Rashid Karapiet yesterday to be typed.) I alternate between excitement—feeling this is good—and feeling it’s so sloppily written. There is something wrong with the ending of “Waldemar.” I have to explain why Waldemar’s leaving makes me feel I am free to go to America. Or, if I don’t feel that, I mustn’t say so.
A grey cold day. Grey feelings. So often, here, I get sad as a pig. Two days ago, Don had one of his outbursts; because he had been badly treated by John Gielgud. It was miserable. My feet ached. And we walked around and around; he was raging and bawling me out. Am I really a masochist, to put up with all this shit? Or what? I hardly know. I hardly know anything. I feel only partly alive; dull, old. I’m getting a kind of senile indifference. No—that’s untrue. It’s nothing new. Just a phase.
What do I want? Nothing. Just to be quiet and snug and to lie in the sun. But not to be fussed and made to go to Sicily to do it. Tony Richardson still hasn’t gotten in touch with us.
June 6. A nearly three weeks’ lapse. And tomorrow it’ll be two months since I arrived here.
Yesterday, I sent off one of the typescripts of Down There on a Visit to Curtis Brown in New York, and another to Dodie and Alec Beesley. The third has been with Alan White of Methuen over the weekend, and already I feel concerned because I haven’t heard from him. Obviously he must have doubts and is showing it to someone else.
Well, I can’t help that. It certainly has its faults. Parts of it—particularly “Paul”—are still sloppily written and I must tighten them up before they go to press. But I feel confident that the whole thing does add up to something, and that it has an authenticity of direct experience and is altogether superior to the slickness and know-how and inner falsity of World in the Evening. If people don’t like it, I am sincerely sorry; but already I feel in my bones that I shall never repudiate it or have to apologize for it. So we’ll see.
Today, we’ll probably hear a very important decision: is Don to get a show of his drawings at the Redfern Galleries? If he is, that would of course be a quite considerable triumph—a justification in the world’s eyes (and after all, let’s face it, it is only the world that demands a justification) of his whole stay in England. But, if he has this show, it will probably be in October or at any rate sometime before Christmas, and Don will want me to be there with him; so the question will come up, shall we go back to California for a couple of months and then return, or shall we stick around here. And in either case I shall have to cancel my half promise to teach at Los Angeles State College next semester.
And now, having finished with the novel, at least for the time being, what am I going to do next?
Well, there’s Ramakrishna. They’ll be needing another chapter for the magazine before long and it would be good for me to get back to that. Good discipline. And a good irritant. Toiling at the Ramakrishna is just the way to irritate the Muse into providing me with a new idea for a novel or play. Of course, I do have a readymade idea and a great deal of material for a short story contained in the hashish-taking episode which I cut out of Down There on a Visit. But I must wait until I’m absolutely certain that this should be cut out.fn120 Cutting it out was entirely Don’s idea, and, as of now, I do believe that he was absolutely right. The hashish scene deflects the interest from Paul to me at a time when we should be centering down on Paul for the final scene. In this sense, it is a coyness, a flirtation with the reader, and therefore wrong.
June 7. Dr. Schwartz, the collector,fn121 bought the manuscript of my novel from me at the Big-Boy cafeteria on Charing Cross Road yesterday afternoon. He appears to carry all his money in a bag, along with first editions. He produced fifty pounds and paid me, and then gave me an extra pound for autographing books and an extra ten shillings for taxi fare. When he talks to you on the phone, he always ends up by saying “chin-chin.”
The taxi took me to a party given by Iris Tree and Diana Duff-Cooperfn122 at the latter’s studio. D.-C. (she should be called B.-C.…) is a rather rude woman. She spent the first part of the party making up for it and most of the last part making up and redressing herself for the next party. There was a sculptress, said by Iris to be an hermaphrodite, named Furi(?)fn123 who appeared dressed like a male peasant in Cavalleria Rusticanafn124 and announced that she had a hunger for life. Then we went on to an exhibition of paintings by an artistically underprivileged Australian and gradually got ourselves mixed up with a bunch of sleazy people who landed us in another of those eternal Italian restaurants. How I loathe this London regime of Italian food and sleepy red wine! By a great effort and thanks to Don’s warnings, I didn’t get drunk. But I always feel bad when I wake in the mornings here; and today I have a cough.
Wystan arrived this morning, and he and I went over to the Spenders’ for lunch; he’s staying there. It was good to see him. I felt a great stimulation. Wystan always brings you into the very midst of his life—so near, indeed, that it is out of focus, so to speak. He mutters about everything that’s on his mind; feuds, unpaid bills, alterations to be made in proofs. Most of the time, you barely know what he’s talking about.
He asked to buy one of Don’s drawings of Stravinsky. But Don was not charmed. He is sulking today. Is he a bit jealous of Wystan’s friendship with me? Or cross because I went to lunch with Stephen, who is now private enemy number one?
June 8. Cross because I went to lunch with the Spenders. We had a long talk this morning, and I think it cleared the air. Maybe I never sufficiently realize how much I have intimidated him into feeling guilty, in the past. Also how terribly insecure he feels. Just because I in fact won’t leave him, I have taken it for granted that he somehow knows this. He doesn’t. And it’s true—I have, subconsciously and even consciously, tried to make him feel guilty, again and again; I have a method of doing this which is positively hypnotic.
Of course, Don is also nervous at the moment because of our anxiety about the Redfern show. He called this morning, to find that Harry Miller hadn’t taken the drawings in until yesterday and that the answer won’t come till this evening. Suppose there’s to be no show? We shall simply have to try to arrange one somewhere else.
To supper with Hester Chapman last night. A curiously old-world atmosphere of dusty brocade curtains and furniture. John Lehmann’s sister, Helen, was there. She told a bitchy story about Jackie Kennedy’s unsuccessful attempt to steal the Indonesian cook of the French ambassador in London. The whole point of this was that Jackie showed American brashness, crudity, stupidity, vulgarity—quite ignoring the fact that the Frenchwoman, who was much older and more experienced, showed infinitely greater vulgarity by calling in the Daily Worker and the gutter journalists to interview the cook. Also, she raised the cook’s wages, thus tacitly admitting that he had been underpaid.
Walked on the Heath this afternoon and made japam and sat under a birch tree looking out over London. Such an “English” scene: far touches of pale gold light amidst the buildings (Turner), a steeple rising above swelling oaks (Constable), and a bright cumulus cloud against a dark thundery sky (Samuel Palmer). Some rain fell as I was walking home and I sheltered under a tree and was talked to by a weird little Filipino, accompanied by a big Dutch student. The Filipino asked me my profession, nationality, name, etc. and had heard of my books. We sort of flirted with each other; he was incredibly provocative. He is to be found, he told me, at the King William IV pub and an expresso bar called The Geisha. It was a very strange meeting, a sort of “recognition.” I laughed wildly, as if with a familiar friend, and even found myself pretending to be about to hit him when he made some joke about Diane.fn125 Home feeling unreasoningly elated.
Today I’m reading Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes, the libretto of Auden’s opera Elegy for Young Lovers, and Jeremy Kingston’s novel, The Prisoner I Keep.fn126 More about all of these.
June 9. Triumph! This morning, Loudon Sainthill phoned and told us that Harry and his colleagues at the Redfern wanted
Don to bring around the photostats of his earlier drawings, as they had almost decided to let him have the show. So he took them around, and they did definitely decide. He thinks it was largely the fact that he had gotten Stravinsky and Beaton to pose for him that did the trick! He will only have one little narrow room—but it’s the Redfern, and the Redfern is THE TOP. And nothing that anyone can say will alter that.
So Don is wild with joy. And I am spinning plans, how best to exploit the victory and turn it into a rejoicing for our friends and a rebuke to our enemies.
The show will be either in September or in February; we shall be told in a few days. If September, I guess we shall stay on here or go to Austria and stay with Wystan and Chester. As for Tony Richardson, I fear we aren’t going to work together; we just don’t seem to be able to come up with an idea we both like. Le Grand Meaulnes is one of Tony’s suggestions. That’s why I’m reading it. Too early to say anything yet.
Not a word from Methuen. And I haven’t even heard that Curtis Brown in New York has received the manuscript.
June 10. Grey, chill and windy today. I would like to go for a walk on the Heath but can’t; I must stay home because nice Mr. Daws is coming to fix our front door, which keeps opening. The lock doesn’t catch.
A letter from a secretary at Curtis Brown’s, New York, to say the novel has reached them. Still nothing from Methuen. They must certainly be doubtful about it and waiting until more of them have read it.
Last night, I had supper with Eric Falk and his friend Bob Jackson. It’s strange how Eric radiates this feeling of goodness. No—what I mean is that goodness is always strange; not that it’s strange that Eric should be good. Rather to my surprise, he made a long speech about the persecution of the Jews and how he personally couldn’t bear the thought of living in Germany or Austria now. He couldn’t understand how Chester Kallman could live there. Bob Jackson told him not to be silly. They have a half-humorous bullying relationship. I got very drunk and came home later than I’d meant to. Don was out for the night. This morning he shows up and sings the blues because I’m going out tonight! I laugh at him and tell him he has a double standard, and then he laughs. And yet, absurdly enough, he really does. He doesn’t see why I can’t stay home by the fire with a good book. But I don’t mind. I even find this rather endearing.
Interruption while Mr. Daws arrived and fixed the door. He only wanted to charge me half a crown! Made him take three shillings.fn127
Have finished Jeremy Kingston’s novel. It is nicely written and has some good characters in it. And the love affair with the German boy is really touching. (I like it when they throw away his toothbrush so that they can both use the same one.) But at present it isn’t a novel at all, merely a huge pile of building materials. One of Jeremy’s faults is a kind of complacency about the mere fact that he is observing. He finds it fascinating just to think of himself observing things. But this fascination isn’t, probably couldn’t be, communicated to the reader.
Something I forgot to record. A sequel to the party on the 6th. After it, Iris Tree went out to dinner with the sculptress [Fiore], got drunk and told her, “You’re in danger of becoming a type!”
Signs increasing of a big crisis over Berlin.fn128 All I think is, I hope it won’t interfere with Don’s show.
Have finished the libretto of Wystan’s opera. I think on the stage it should be marvellous.
As for Le Grand Meaulnes, it is all very nice but so far I’m not captivated; it is somehow too sweet.
Don said yesterday that he doesn’t want to paint portraits. He feels drawing is the only way he can do that. If he goes on painting at all, he says, he might even become abstract!
I remember describing him to Johnnie [van Druten] and Carter, back in 1953, as “a sort of magic boy.” I still feel that about him now and then. Yesterday evening, for example, at Eric’s, he absolutely sparkled like a diamond. He seemed a creature of another kind, altogether.
June 14. Woke up this morning really black-depressed. I hate this town. I feel caged in this country—even when we rode out through the charming fields and woods on the train yesterday on the way to see Forster at Coventry. I long to get back to California. I hate the life we are leading here. Overeating and overdrinking. Feeling stuffed and liverish all the time. It is all so desperate and compulsive. Almost every night these parties. And Don usually furious because of some insult and because he’s rattled with exhaustion and feels he daren’t let up for fear he decides that his life is “useless.”
Well, good. Now I’ve written all that, and I must consider practical measures. At present Don needs me and I honestly don’t think he wants me to go back. So I shan’t. That much is that. Therefore it follows that I must change my life here as far as possible. I must not let Don’s morning dawdlings in the bathroom and at the phone hold me up. I must get on with my work right after breakfast. Work means immediately the Ramakrishna book and whatever comes up later. Also, I mustn’t drink so much. Also, I must exercise. Right here in this house, as far as it’s possible.
We still don’t know for absolutely sure about the Redfern date. Harry Miller only thinks it will be in September. Otherwise, of course, we should go back to California.
Morgan was angelically sweet and he really looked very well. Only his movements have slowed down and his gait is shuffling. Both Bob and May [Buckingham] seem elderly, too. (Bob’s my age.) Morgan seems chiefly interested in the censorship battle; talked a lot about Lady Chatterley and the trial.fn129 At lunch he said, “I’ll drink anything.” Bob and May bored us nearly pissless talking about the wonders of Coventry and all the new building which is being done, and the concerts and plays which are being given. It all represented an effort at self-reassurance and was therefore touching; but they talked so much that Morgan couldn’t get a word in. And Don didn’t get a chance to draw him.
Don furious because Mary Ure was rude to him last night, he thought. (There was a rather ridiculous Negro from Venezuela there named Mitto Samson who has been a Satanist and seen live babies’ throats cut and has written a book about it for Cape.fn130 Maybe all his stories are true; but there’s still something comic about him.) This morning, Don was penitent because he had sulked. And we always come back to the same thought: it’s because I’m around and it bores him when people lick my ass. They do it nearly every evening, and I can honestly say it even bores me!
June 15. Don cheered up again yesterday evening, so so did I. We went to see a silly but not so bad play called The Bird of Time,fn131 about Anglo-Indians, etc. in Kashmir; and then we went backstage and talked to old Gladys Cooper, who is really rather sweet. Don is going to draw her. She seemed genuinely pleased about this.
Don says he is miserable unless he can draw for three hours at the very least, every day. Any day on which he doesn’t draw is a waste, and sheer hell. This morning he drew me, seven portraits in all. A couple of them among the best he’s ever done. That meant I didn’t accomplish anything much of my own, but that doesn’t matter. According to my rules here, if I can help Don, let alone myself, that’s a good day’s work. Tonight he is going to stay in town. I’m having dinner with Jonathan.
It now seems definite that the Redfern show will be held sometime in September. So we must make plans accordingly. Maybe go with Tony Richardson and John Osborne to the South of France. But I still don’t see any possible idea for a movie with Tony. Meanwhile, Jerry Wald will be in town before long; and Jim Geller thinks he is still interested in getting me to do Ulysses.
Then Chester Kallman will be coming and we finally approach the talks about the Berlin musical. I have a feeling these will end badly. Especially as I don’t really like Chester, and as I feel the terms they are proposing are not fair to me: they want us to split three ways, while I feel that I should have something extra as the original author.
I haven’t done one bit of work on the Ramakrishna book. I have done a few exercises, once. And I have kept up japam, almost completely—except that, the other day,
I missed doing it for Don as well because of the lack of time.
Nothing from Methuen about the novel.
Heinz and Gerda and Christian [Neddermeyer] are coming here in a week’s time. This is a big bore and nothing but a bore. I simply dread it. And, at the end of the month, I have got to go up and see Richard. Fate more or less ordains that, because I am to do this television show in Manchester, about the thirties, with Stephen and Cyril Connolly and, I think, Wystan.
A Frenchman(?) Swiss(?) named Miron Grindea has just been by. He edits a magazine called Adam and he wanted to know if I knew anybody who has £250 to help him publish Upward’s novel in a double number.fn132 As so often happens, I was furious when he insisted on seeing me and then liked him and was in no hurry for him to go. He arrived in a terrific flap because the street numbers here are not consecutive. This he called “criminal” and “tragic.”
June 16. Hot and sweaty again. The papers full of the approaching Berlin crisis. My only feeling is, I don’t want to leave Don while it’s on. The only really unbearable thing would be to be separated from him.
This morning we went to a rehearsal of John Osborne’s Luther. Albert Finney looked as if he is going to be really good. It’s surprising how right he seems for the part. And cutting off his hair has vastly improved his appearance. He is still in some danger of his mannerisms, however. There were moments when he played the No-Neck Monster and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. But he is able to convey self-torture, constipation and fury.
June 17. At Dodie and Alec’s cottage for the weekend.
The cottage looks as if it were right out of Disneyland, with clematis and Albertine roses climbing over the thatched roof and black and white fantail pigeons pecking around on the lawn. Lots of people who are driving by stop and frankly stare. But then the jets come screaming low over the fields from the nearby airfield, with their ridiculous bustling air of defending us, heel over just below the garden and head for their lunch in Africa.
The Sixties Page 13
